iMac 3.06 core duo 24" a good buy?

I have the chance to buy one of these early 2008 aluminium iMacs for £250 which is quite a good price here in the UK. I would use it to replace my wife's white 24" 2.16Ghz core duo.

I am hoping for a bit more oomph when processing but mainly to upgrade from the current version of OSX she has ( which is 10.6.8 snow leopard )

My question is whether or not this would be a significant upgrade. Would the new machine cope with Mountain Lion? Looking ahead I'm assuming if ML is possible the so should Mavericks be. Is this right?

Would I be better off saving up and getting a newer mac mini or similar?

It might be a significant upgrade from what you have currently, but it's still a 5 year old machine. I'd definitely max the RAM (6GB according to Everymac.com) and maybe even consider a small SSD for the OS and your apps. Mavericks should work ok on it, but next year's OS update ("10.10"?) may very well not. ML should run fine with the maxed RAM.

If the old machine and the "new" are both Core Duo's - you're not going to see that much improvement in everday use. If the new one is a Core 2 Duo, it would be a noticeable improvement....would it be worth the $$$ for that old of a machine? I'd save for a new Mini too.

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